For most doctors medicine is a job, not a vocation. If it gives you a decent salary & working conditions, it can be very rewarding & you stick with it. If it destroys your health & your family life, you give up & seek work elsewhere. Look at the number of GPs under 30 quitting.

For 35 years, I worked as an NHS doctor, comedian, investigative, journalist, broadcaster & health writer. On an hourly rate, I earned far more satirising, investigating or explaining the NHS than working in it. The NHS does give you limitless work, but for limited renumeration.

The managed decline of the NHS since 2010 was always going to end in mass staff vacancies (150,000+), mass avoidable harm, mass migration of staff to countries that value them more & mass industrial action. Negligent oversight, planning & funding have led us to this NHS disaster.

Doctors, both senior & junior, have a very strong case for pay restoration. The government will not offer juniors anywhere near what the BMA is asking for, even though they’re worth it. Other countries will happily pay more for UK trained doctors. It may not end well for the NHS.